


Sealed in Blood

by firelord65



Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Near Death Experiences, Pre-Relationship, Vampire Bites, Vampire Compulsion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25434700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelord65/pseuds/firelord65
Summary: Dauntless has a secret. One that Initiates aren’t supposed to find out about until after they’ve been accepted to the faction. Tris has pretty bad luck stumbling into it.
Relationships: Four | Tobias Eaton/Tris Prior
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17
Collections: Fandom Giftbox 2020





	Sealed in Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corina (CorinaLannister)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorinaLannister/gifts).



If Tris felt eyes on her when she held her hand over the burning coals during the ceremony, she told herself they were just from the stunned Abnegation aghast at losing one of their own. With her back to the crowd, she wasn’t able to tell the hungry glances that came from her new faction.

To be fair, though, they stared at everyone as they bled into the five bowls. It wasn’t an Erudite curiosity or an Amity politeness. There was hunger in Dauntless. That was what drew Tris to them. Something _more_ lurked under their reckless courage. 

Later at dinner when Tris fiddled with the bandage on her palm, she noticed how Four now glowered at her. “Sorry,” she blurted out. “We can sit somewhere else.” She’d picked the spot out of necessity - there wasn’t really anywhere else for herself, Christina, and the others to all sit together. 

He made a noise in his throat and turned back to his own meal. “...Don’t worry about it,” Four replied gruffly. He picked his burger up - rare to the point of undercooked - and paused before taking another bite. “Maybe don’t bother the rest of the faction until you have a better idea of what to expect.” It was vague advice. Tris nodded regardless. She’d take vague over nonexistent.

In the dark of the halls, there seemed still to be the feeling of being watched. When the transfers were deposited in their dorm - separated from the rest of the faction - there again was an unspoken nudge to remain there. It didn’t feel safe to wander around the blue-lit corridors among the Dauntless. 

“D’you think tomorrow we’ll get to see more of the faction?” Will wondered when they had settled into their bunks. Underneath him, Peter scoffed.

“No, they’re going to keep us penned in here. ‘Course we’re going to see more of the faction.”

Will’s concern was merited, though, as once Four gathered up the chattering, skittish transfers in the morning he brought them directly to an empty room. As they filtered in, Tris felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. When the last transfer stepped inside, Four closed the door behind them with a snap. 

“You have each selected Dauntless because you wanted to become something more than you were in your previous life,” he said. Tris bounced on her heels, her attention bouncing around the room at her fellow trainees, at the strange equipment lined against the walls, at Four’s contemplative expression as he pondered the next thing to say. 

“I say previous life because once you are Initiated here - _if_ you are Initiated here - there is no going back to who you were before.” Silence shrouded the Initiates. The speech that Marcus had given in the Spire had been hopeful, encouraging. Choosing was a special time for each person to decide their path forward in life. It hadn’t felt like Tris had been closing a door to her Abnegation past until now. 

The Erudite girl, Myra, shuffled her feet nervously. The sound stood out sharply in the room. Four’s head swiveled to focus on her. He stalked forward, each footstep echoing quietly. “If you aren’t prepared to be fully committed to Dauntless - if you have any reservations or lingering _what ifs_ in the back of your mind - then this is your last chance to leave.” He circled around Myra, breaking the boyfriend and girlfriend’s clasped hands. 

“Initiation is the first step to learning about the true nature of being Dauntless. You will face things great and terrifying, things that will make you question the balance of life and death. And if it doesn’t break you, then you will wonder how you ever thought you understood it before.”

Myra’s eyes closed and she quivered. Tris felt her own body freeze. Four wound his way to face the terrified girl. His hand reached to tip her chin up. Myra’s eyes squeezed even tighter shut. She twisted her head out of his grip and inhaled sharply. 

Four frowned. “If you’re too scared to even consider the challenges ahead, then you won’t make it here. You’re better off factionless now,” he said. 

Next to Myra, Edward fumed. He rounded on Four, jabbing his finger sharply into the trainer’s chest. “You can’t say that about her! She chose to be here. She can make her own decisions on if she’s going to fight to try!” Edward cried. The spell in the room still gripped the rest of the Initiates; no one knew what to do. Tris covered her mouth with her hands. Her own breathing seemed too loud. 

In the span of a blink, Four had whirled about and shoved Edward up against the wall. His palm was on the younger boy’s throat, and Edward’s hand with the accusatory finger was pinned as well. 

He said something. It wasn’t loud enough to carry to the rest of the group. Edward’s face went ashen and then his eyes drained of the fury that had flared up. “No,” he replied dully. 

“Edward!” Myra whined. Her boyfriend didn’t look at her. He stopped fighting against the hold that Four had on him. 

“Well, are you?” Four asked, this time loud enough that everyone could hear. 

Myra hiccuped and jackrabbited to the door. Her hands scrabbled on the latch. Her head snapped back and forth in a nervous motion. “How can you ask that? I don’t want to be here anymore!” she insisted. “Edward, let’s go. Please, can we just go back to Erudite?” She chanced a look over her shoulder at her boyfriend, no longer pinned and yet not following to comfort her, and started to sob. 

“Then go,” Four murmured. Finally, Myra managed to get the latch to open. Still shaking, she slipped through the door and left. Just like that, there were only eight transfers left. Tris gasped as her muscles released; the tension in the room had broken leaving behind only confusion. 

“Why did she leave?” Peter asked.

Four closed the door again. “She wasn’t willing to die. And that’s the ultimate sacrifice that every initiate needs to be ready to make,” he replied simply. It felt like a threat rather than a possibility. Maybe it was just the chill of being underground. Tris swallowed hard. She squeezed her hand, feeling the healing cut on her palm twinge. At least now it made sense why they sealed their choice in blood. 

* * *

No one mentioned Myra again, especially not Edward. For the next few days, he had a glossy-eyed stare if he was left to his own devices for too long. Tris tried not to think about it. 

Their next training moment was more of what she had expected after years of watching the “hellians” of Dauntless run through Chicago. Physical training to perfect their strength, reflexes, and skill required hours of drills and long nights for resting. Except Dauntless was always so _alive_ at night; the hallways bustled and the sounds from the Pit echoed into their dormitory late into the evening. 

It was easy to forget about the first morning in the strange, cold room. It was also getting easier to adjust to living in the dark halls and caverns of Dauntless. There were windows in their training area, but they were papered over so the sunlight that came in was mottled and faded. Tris joked once at lunch that Four was trying to turn them nocturnal like him; when he overheard he wasn’t amused. 

“Sorry,” she murmured as she hid behind a curtain of hair. Four huffed but didn’t say anything further. 

He seemed to give her breaks like that more so than the others in her group. When Peter got mouthy he would usually get told off or earn the terrifying icy eyed glare that guaranteed instant silence. Yet Tris could push the envelope just a far and only get a warning. She took it as inexplicable; maybe it was mercy in exchange for her lagging scores in the physical challenges. Maybe she wasn’t as annoying as Peter. 

Another part of her - the part that had always held out the unrealistic hope at school dances for someone to ask her to go with them - had a different opinion. Even more so, she felt there could be a _something_ there when she was selected first to be on Four’s Capture the Flag team. 

Of course the match was at night; they hadn’t even been allowed to go to bed after all day of training, even. Instead their group of nine was loaded up in a train car along with Four, Eric, and - finally - the Dauntless-born initiates. Their training had been entirely separate up until then. Tris wanted first to take advantage of the mixing of the training groups until one of them told her to pound tar and all but cut her out of the team plan for being a Stiff. She’d been separated from Christina, Will, _and_ Al somehow. Either they were on Eric’s team or had peeled off to be on the “offensive” section of the team, leaving her with the uncooperative others. 

Tris found herself the odd woman out yet still resolved to contribute. If she wasn’t going to be given a role then she would have to carve one out for herself. Setting off from the group, she had the good fortune of finding the towering Ferris wheel to use as a vantage point. 

“You know you’re not full Dauntless yet,” Four’s voice called in warning as Tris began her ascent. She had barely scaled her own height. When she twisted her head to look she found the instructor staring up at her.

“I know,” Tris replied. “But I can still fight that nagging fear from the heights and do better. Even if I’m not great at that yet.” She knew she still had a lot to learn; they all did. But that was what Initiation was for, wasn’t it? Pushing themselves to be better?

In the dark of the night, it was hard to read his expression. Tris turned and resumed her climbing. When Four protested, she ignored him. After another moment she could feel the steel under her palms shaking from another climbing with her. Four. 

“I just need to see where the others are. Then I’m coming down. You don’t need to worry about me,” Tris scoffed. The vibrations didn’t stop. She frowned and pushed to scale the rest of the ladder. It only reached the point where the carriages would be accessible. Her view was still mostly obstructed with buildings and the occasional scraggly tree. 

“ _Tris!_ ” Four snapped. She had to stop to wipe her palms before she reached up at the lattice of metalwork that made up the wheel. There were enough crossing beams that it would serve as a ladder, sort of. It clearly hadn’t run in ages. There was no way it would start to move just under her own weight. She pulled herself up, taking a beat to breathe and look away from the ground that was spiraling away from her. 

Reaching to get the next beam was tougher; the angle was worse. Tris scuffed her feet along the beam she was on to move closer to the center of the wheel. The crossbeams were closer there, but she was farther from the support beam and its functional, practical ladder. Four called her name again, this time insisting that she was going to hurt herself or worse. Again he reminded her that she wasn’t fully Dauntless yet.

“I know!” she snapped. She chewed on her lip as she regarded the lattice above her. There were some decent rungs towards the top that were definitely scaleable. But to get there… that was the challenge. 

Her hands were sweating despite the cool evening air. And the metal had tiny beads of condensation gathering as she got higher up. She used the edge of her shirt to wipe down the beam at her stomach and then hauled herself to stand on it. 

Everything shifted. Tris squealed and grabbed for the closest beam to hold on to. She could see Four below her, still trying to follow her path. “You’re too heavy!” she yelled. 

“You shouldn’t be up there! It’s too dangerous,” Four shouted in reply. The moonlight was clearer up here. She could see the expression on his face - concern was laid bare. Something reckless burned in her despite his worry. 

“I’ll be fine,” Tris insisted. “You can stay there.” She eased off her death grip and stretched up to the next uneven bar. Three times more she was able to clamor to greater heights until the angle of the beams became too severe to hold on. Wrapping one arm firmly around the steel, Tris twisted to finally behold the landscape spread out underneath her. 

There wasn’t time to properly study the alleyways and streets now laid out. Once again the Ferris wheel groaned and shuddered. Tris dropped - not far, but at least a foot - as it twisted about the axis. Below, Tris could hear Four cry out wordlessly. Hammering filled Tris’ ears as her heart thundered in her chest. When she looked down there no longer was a dark form shadowing her path. She spotted a flash of skin and clothing plummeting down. 

Four had fallen. 

_“Shit!”_ Tris cursed. Suddenly his reluctance and his warnings smacked her in the face. If he hadn’t been following after her, this wouldn’t have happened. If she had been able to reign it in, he wouldn’t be a crumpled mass on the ground. How far up had he been? Tris scrambled to reverse her previous path. Her grip was shaky; her footsteps rushed. She didn’t hear anything else from Four, not since he’d yelled. 

She called his name as she descended. At one point she might have heard a response but it was impossible to tell over the pounding in her veins. She slid down the ladder, the bolts of each rung tearing harshly into her palms. Another half dozen steps and Tris crouched at Four’s side. 

His eyes were closed. He had fallen onto his back, like a turtle. Warily, Tris took his hand into hers and tried to tell - was he still alive?

Four’s chest didn’t rise and fall. Her fingers pressed hard on his wrist. She didn’t know how to find a pulse. This had to be wrong, right? He felt cold to the touch. It didn’t even matter that she was bleeding on him. She had to try something else. “C’mon, Four,” Tris pled. “Wake up.” 

She slapped his cheek with the back of her hand. Once during dissections in Biology Susan had fainted. The teacher had brought her back with a motion like that. Or had it been smelling salts? Four hadn’t fainted. Still, Tris had to try something. 

“Please wake up,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Four!”

Like a gunshot, Four snapped upright at the waist. He gasped once, his eyes transfixed in the open air in front of him. Relief, ice cold and shocking, coursed through Tris. She thanked god for listening to her wordless prayers as she had climbed down from the Ferris wheel. More importantly she clasped Four’s hand tightly. “You’re okay!”

His head twisted and something dark, something _other_ stared out from his eyes at her. Where Four had brown eyes that sometimes burned with intensity when he was frustrated or worked up, here now they appeared nearly black. They bore into Tris, pinning her in place as sure as Four had pinned Edward way back on that first day. 

He still hadn’t said anything. Seconds stretched between them. Tris still had his hand clasped in hers. “Four?” she managed to squeak. 

It cracked through the spell binding them and his expression softened briefly. “Tris?” His voice nearly broke. Tris smiled although it was then wiped away as Four pulled his hand out from hers and shoved her away.

“You have to leave,” he ordered. 

“I need to make sure you’re okay,” Tris countered. She could feel self-conscious about having held so tightly to him later; right now she was worried he was still hurt. 

He tried to push himself to his feet. Pain twisted his face and he collapsed once more to the ground. Tris inched closer. He let out a cry that turned feral and angry. “You have to _go_ ,” Four insisted once more. 

“No.” 

“It’s not safe for you,” he managed. His chest heaved as his breathing turned labored and rapid. “You don’t know- You can’t know-” Whatever Four was trying to say was lost as each sentence died out in a whine of pain. One hand clutched his ribs tightly. 

Tris put a hand on his side. She could feel something sharp right against the skin. At least one rib. Maybe two. When she took her hand away, the only blood there was her own from the cuts on her palms and fingers. She didn’t know if it was lucky or not that it hadn’t punctured all the way through the surface. “We need to get you to the hospital,” she said.

“Back to Dauntless. Not the hospital,” he gasped instead. 

“You’re not making any sense, Four,” Tris said. Her brows knitted together as she suddenly had to keep him from moving again. “Just stay still. We have to get Eric and call for help.”

She clasped him on the shoulder, a comforting gesture that Dauntless preferred. He twisted to stare at her hand. “It’ll be okay,” she said just as he spoke as well.

“You’re bleeding.” Four’s words were a sigh, not a question. 

“I’m fine. You’re not,” Tris insisted. 

His expression darkened again. Not from anger, but it was the darkness and hunger from moments earlier. “You’re _bleeding_ ,” he panted. He pulled himself to sit up. The motion had to be agonizing. “Give it to me.” 

Tris wanted to edge away. He didn’t look right. He didn’t look like Four, not really with the cold glint to his eyes. “You smell… sweet,” he whispered. “I thought that first night it was you but I couldn’t tell. Now I can.”

“Four, you’re scaring me,” Tris whispered. She wanted to tell him to lay back down, wanted to tell him that he had to let her go find Eric now. She didn’t say any of that. 

He hummed deep in his throat and leaned further to press his face into the crook of her neck. She felt heat bloom as he inhaled and exhaled deeply. Still, Tris couldn’t move. Why couldn’t she move?

“You can’t remember this,” he murmured into her throat. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “Don’t worry. You won’t. It’ll all just be a hazy dream. You don’t have to be scared any more.” 

Tris opened her mouth to ask what he meant, what was happening, but she didn’t get to finish the thought. He had threaded his fingers through her hair and used the grip - not tight, but secure - to tip her head back. That was when his teeth dug into the soft skin at the joint of her throat and her collar. 

It hurt at first. It hurts when someone bites into the skin deep enough to bleed freely. Then he released her throat and began to drink. Time seemed to stop. Tris was frozen, pinned in Four’s demanding embrace as he fed off of her. 

Slowly, eventually, his hand in her hair loosened. His tongue laved the last spilled drops from her skin. And he was done. Tris tried to focus on her breathing - was she still breathing? Yes. She was still alive. Next, she focused on each of her limbs. Her hands were shaking and tingled strangely, but they too seemed alright. 

Four dragged himself to a standing position. He held his side awkwardly, but he didn’t carry himself like he had a set of broken bones. If Tris hadn’t seen it happen, she would have assumed at most he was bruised. He pulled her up, too, to totter on her uncertain footing next to him.

“This is the hard part,” Four said finally. He held her hands tight as he kept her close, so close that she had to crane her head to keep meeting his eyes. 

“This is where you have to forget this happened,” he cooed. “It’s too soon for you. You weren’t supposed to know about this - about what Dauntless really is - until we knew you could handle it.” 

Tris shook her head slowly. “I-I won’t say anything,” she insisted. Her voice was hoarse. She wanted to feel her neck, to see if there even was a mark there. It didn’t feel like there was anything. There was hardly even a dull ache left. 

“Don’t fight it,” Four ordered. He leveled his gaze firmly on her. Again his eyes darkened - was that what he really looked like, Tris wondered. Or was this something _other_ that he kept from overtaking him entirely? “Just let it go. Water pouring out of a glass. An utterly inconsequential evening. You tried to help the team. You climbed the Ferris wheel but didn’t find anything. Now we’re down here, trying to figure out a new plan.”

It would be so easy to just agree with him. His voice was sweet and smooth. It coiled around Tris’ head like a snake. 

“You fell though,” she insisted with a small shake of her head. Four captured her chin with the crook of his finger. All she could see were those dark, cold eyes. 

“We almost fell. But everything worked out. Nothing strange happened. Just an ordinary game of capture the flag.” 

“Everything worked out,” Tris parroted back. It seemed like the right thing to say. Four nodded in encouragement. “Everything worked out,” Tris repeated firmly.

“That’s right.” He studied her for a moment longer before apparently deeming her response suitable. His hands dropped hers and he stepped away. “Now, close your eyes for just a moment.” Tris regarded him carefully, uncertain if she wanted to. After an encouraging nod from Four, she acquiesced. 

Tris found herself standing at the foot of the Ferris wheel, alone. She frowned and cast a glance up at the top. Maybe it would be a good vantage point for their team?

**Author's Note:**

> Not my typical ship, but I thought I would take the challenge and try to write something with Four playing a major role for once. I don't know 100% that I would call it _romantic_ Four/Tris without a bit more buildup? But wanted to include the tag + "Pre-Relationship" rather than definitely calling it platonic. 
> 
> Corina, I hope you enjoyed :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Follow everywhere I go!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26938717) by [SparklingStella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparklingStella/pseuds/SparklingStella)




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